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NSE LIVE! Equities regain rally as more companies release Q1 earnings

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NSE LIVE! Equities regain rally as more companies release Q1 earnings

Quoted equities rode on the back of resurgent bargain-hunting on Tuesday to stage a comeback to the green zone as more corporate earnings for the first quarter showed mixed but largely positive performance in the first three months of this year.

Against the background of the losses in the two previous trading sessions, the market situation on Tuesday showed widespread positive sentiments with more than three advancers for every decliner. The gains by 22 stocks mitigated losses by seven other stocks to leave quoted companies with additional capital gains of N20 billion, approximately 0.24 per cent increase on aggregate market value.
Reas Also : NSE LIVE! Equities open with N30b loss

The All Share Index (ASI)-the common value-based index that tracks prices of all quoted equities on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), rose from its opening index of 24,765.10 points to close at 24,823.86 points. Aggregate market value of all quoted equities simultaneously rose from N8.519 trillion to close at N8.539 trillion.

The gains on Tuesday helped to pare down the negative average year-to-date return to -13.33 per cent.

The rally came as five companies including FBN Holdings, UAC of Nigeria, UACN Property Development Company, Berger Paints and Total Nigeria released their latest earnings reports.

Analysts at FSDH Securities said the first quarter report of FBN Holdings reinforced confidence in the stock after it had reported steep decline in 2015 full-year profit due to N119 billion impairment charge.

Sectoral analysis underscored the spread of the rally as most sectoral and group indices closed positive. The NSE Insurance Index appreciated by 1.1 per cent. The NSE Banking Index also rose by 0.9 per cent. The NSE Consumer Goods Index returned a modest gain of 0.2 per cent while the NSE Oil and Gas Index appreciated by 0.3 per cent. However, the NSE Industrial Goods Index slipped by 0.02 per cent.

Turnover also picked up with the exchange of 212.15 million shares valued at N1.50 billion in 3,240 deals, representing increase of 46.7 per cent and 96.3 per cent on the volume and value recorded in previous trading session. Banking stocks remained the dominant stocks with Access Bank leading the activities chart with a turnover of 54.46 million shares. FBN Holdings was the second most active stock with 36.57 million shares while Zenith Bank placed third with 24.80 million shares.

“At the moment, investor sentiment towards stocks continues to be driven by earnings releases as seen in the continuous sell off observed in Guinness Nigeria due to its unimpressive third quarter result. Nonetheless, the current price of some value stocks presents an attractive entry for investors with a medium to long term investment horizon,” Afrinvest Securities stated.

Ecobank Transnational Incorporated led the gainers with a gain of 50 kobo to close at N15.20. Nigerian Breweries followed with a gain of 44 kobo to close at N106.53. Oando added 18 kobo to close at N4.55. Dangote Sugar Refinery rose by 16 kobo to close at N5.98 while Nascon Allied Industries chalked up 15 kobo to close at N8.10 per share.

On the other hand, Guinness Nigeria led the losers with a loss of N2 to close at N95. Stanbic IBTC Holdings declined by 54 kobo to close at N13.76. Berger Paints lost 46 kobo to close at N8.84. Airline Services and Logistics dropped by 8.0 kobo to N1.64 while Dangote Cement declined by 4.0 kobo to close at N161 per share.

 

 

 

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